TAME SERPENTS. 339 as well as the removal of the four lower incisor teeth and the two canines.

The Agar are armed with two or three long, very broadbladed spears, which have no barbs, heavy throwing sticks or clubs, and a large buffalo-hide shield. The Atwot is the only Dinka tribe that uses arrows. Formerly in hunting elephants the people only used the spear; now, however, pitfalls are employed, as well as weighted spears hung to the branches of trees, as 1s customary in the south.

The articles of luxury employed are, in addition to brandy, the usual mrissa and a drink named wm bilbil, which occupies a position between brandy and beer; also tobacco, which is carried in small packets hung on the arm, and chewed. Plugs: of tobacco are carried behind the right ear.

Dr. Schweinfurth has already mentioned the many small snakes which inhabit the straw roofs of the Dinka huts, and which generally live on very friendly terms with the master of the house. The great Python africanus is very common in the whole of the Agar district, and one of these fine snakes may be often seen as a privileged inmate in the huts of this tribe. It is the women especially who form friendship with them; they sometimes rub them with fat, and even pour small quantities of fat down their throats. The Agar chiefs told me that the snakes are so much at home that they will never think of touching a goat or a sheep belonging to the people with whom they live, even if they are very hungry, but will go hunting far off into the forest, where they sometimes pay their friends a visit, and are always welcomed.

Of the various Dinka tribes, the Nuér and the Atwot speak the same language, which differs considerably from the true Dinka; whereas, on the other hand, the Rék, Mok, Gok, Agar, Alwaj, Elyab, Kich, and Bor speak exactly the same idiom.

In this family a very peculiar and isolated position, like that of a pariah caste, is occupied by the so-called Derr, people of a very dark skin, of middle size, and well-set bodies, who wander through the dry land between the Kich and Elyab, sometimes associating with them, sometimes with the Atwot. They are hunters, possessing no settled dwellings or villages,